


you think your lines are so damn smooth but they don't work on me

by believe_happyendings



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bar/Pub, Crazy Stupid Love AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-23
Updated: 2016-08-29
Packaged: 2018-08-10 16:06:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7851874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/believe_happyendings/pseuds/believe_happyendings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur is all of twenty when he first decides he’s too old for clubs, and wants to spend time at swanky bars and drink fancy martinis like an adult. One night he wanders into Eames’ territory, only unlike every other conquest Eames has had he doesn’t fall hook line and sinker for Eames’ charming wiles. Instead, he ends up charming and bewildering Eames.</p><p>A sort of Crazy, Stupid, Love. AU, inspired by my favourite scenes from the movie.</p><p>(may or may not eventually feature Eames lifting Arthur up Dirty Dancing style)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> You don't need to have seen the movie Crazy, Stupid, Love., to read this, but I would see it anyway, if only for this scene, because the original is so, so good.

“You wouldn’t.” 

“I fucking would.”

“Seriously? You’d marry Fischer?” Ariadne’s incredulous voice carried over the buzz of the bar around them, and she leaned across the table. Her black hair, loose around her shoulders, shone in the low lamplight, eyes sparkling.

“Why not?”

“Arthur, you’re 20 years old, okay, you have no idea what’s going to happen to you when you’re actually old enough to be getting married.”

Arthur leaned back in his chair, legs splayed out. He ignored the few interested glances he got from people standing at the polished gold and black bar in the centre of the large room, glad that he and Ariadne were in the corner where they could sit and drink and discern over the clientele from afar. He had researched this place before coming, and had liked the promise of an older, less yelly crowd, thick plush carpet instead of sticky floors, and a smoky, more intimate feeling. And now he was here, it was even better than he had expected. It gave you the sensation of being stolen away, carried off into a night filled with ambient jazz and strong martinis and good conversation. 

He shrugged, feeling calm. 

“I’ve already planned it out." 

Ariadne rolled her eyes, “I’m sure you have, Arthur, but trust me, wherever you think Robert Fischer fits into that magic plan, you’re wrong. He’s just a puppet for his family, he’s not independent like you are and you don’t want to get stuck with him.”

Arthur sighed. “Look, we’re not here to talk about my relationship.” 

“Okay, fine, then you could at least get us more drunk so we can actually have a good time.”  She gestured at the empty drinks between them.

“We are having a good time.” Arthur sniffed. He enjoyed acting like an adult, and drinking sophisticated cocktails (even though the one he was drinking was, admittedly, as vile-tasting as it was elegant-looking), and not having to spend four hours dancing with people grinding up against him (although sometimes he did miss the thrill of it, just a little.)

“You haven’t even taken off your jacket." 

“This jacket is Dior, I can’t just drape it over any chair.”

“God, Arthur, I really wish you’d never met Fischer, maybe you’d actually cut loose once in a while. You used to be fun, remember?” Her eyes were sparkling, challenging him.

Arthur rose to the bait and stood up, slipping his jacket off with a dramatic flourish and hanging it neatly over his chair. “Better?” 

She smiled. “Much. Now go get us drinks. And ask for them strong.”

 

Out of the corner of his eye Arthur saw a man watching him from across the bar. He was bolder than the others who were glancing his way, his grey-green eyes intent, a smile on his face. He was stroking a hand through his neatly-trimmed beard and quirked his full, plush lips when he saw Arthur looking back at him. Arthur quickly looked away to signal the bartender, trying not to think about how the man’s muscled arms might feel wrapped around his waist.

A few minutes later, Arthur was putting money on the bartop when he felt someone jostle in next to him. Sparkling grey-green eyes looked intently into his. 

“My, my, what’s a pretty thing like you doing in a place like this?” 

Arthur rolled his eyes. “Trying to avoid badly dressed men and terrible pick up lines."  

He grabbed his drinks and walked pointedly away, back to his table, before the man could respond or see the blush on his cheeks from the rough promise in his voice.

“We chose the wrong bar tonight.” He complained as he came back to Ariadne with the drinks. 

“Oh?” she smiled, “and why's that?”

“I just got hit on by a man who was at least 35 with the worst pick up line I’ve ever heard.” No need to mention that that same man was almost criminally attractive, and British to boot.

“Now, darling, you’ve hurt my feelings.” A familiar low voice purred in his ear.  Arthur swung around to see the same man from the bar, standing far too close to him. 

Ariadne made a small choking noise behind him and when Arthur turned to look at her, her mouth was open and she was staring openly at the annoyingly persistent (and, alright, rather handsome) stranger. 

Arthur sat down in his seat and looked at Ariadne, who was now looking between him and the man with a decided glint in her eye. 

“Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend, love?” 

Arthur looked up at him, unimpressed. Alright, so he was still irritatingly gorgeous up close; he managed to make a horrific crumpled mustard button-up shirt and brown trouser combination look good, his top buttons undone and his sleeves rolled up to his elbows showing off tanned muscle and hinting at the black swirl of tattoos. Even with the garish, terrible lemon yellow and pink striped jacket dangling over his arm, he was definitely attractive enough to make even the worst pick up line successful. Fuck him, Arthur thought resentfully. 

Ariadne rolled her eyes and smiled, “I’m Ariadne. Sorry about my friend, he doesn’t get fun until his third drink.” At Arthur’s outraged look she winked, and then continued, “I think your accent’s very sexy.” 

“Oh, I’m glad you think so, pet, because I think your friend here is very sexy." 

Arthur groaned. “My god, really? How old are you?”

The man mock-frowned. His eyes were sparkling, lit up by the glowing lamplight. “Why, darling, I thought you already deduced my old-man status. Although I have to say, this beard puts on a few years.” He stroked his light beard with a winning smile.

“I didn’t think pick up lines worked for men past their prime.” 

The man placed a hand over his heart.

“Is he always this cruel? And what a shame, for when you smile your dimples are a thing to behold, darling.”

Arthur wrinkled his nose. 

“Did you just call me darling?”

“Well, you haven’t yet given me the pleasure of your name. Ariadne, does your cruel and beautiful friend have a name?”

“His name is Arthur. And trust me, you’re exactly his type.” Ariadne, the traitor, smiled at him above the rim of her glass.

“So, you think I’m fit, Arthur, hm?” The man was practically purring.

“No, I don’t.” 

“He does.”  

“You do?" 

“I don’t.” Arthur hissed. “And what does that even mean, anyway?”

The Brit winked, and Arthur ignored the traitorous tug in his belly. “If you’d like to find out, darling, we can talk about it all night long, but first let me buy you a drink.” 

“Why?”

“Because when someone as gorgeous as you walks into a bar and then spends the next hour leaning back in his chair with his legs spread out and wrapped in sinfully tailored trousers, and then does a bloody strip tease taking off his jacket, it’s only a natural impulse for a poor man such as myself to want to entertain them.”

Arthur put his head in his hands.

“Arthur, darling, believe me, there are plenty of gorgeous people in this bar. Your friend is certainly one of them.” He winked lavisciously at Ariadne and she turned bright pink. 

Then the stranger leaned down, his voice lower now, almost intimate, eyes warm and liquid .

“But it’s you I haven't been able keep my eyes off since you strolled in here in your pretty little shirt and tie. So have a drink with me, alright?” 

Arthur looked at him frankly. “No, thankyou.”

The man sighed. “You seem like the kind of person who says that a lot, love.”

“I’m not.”

Ariadne snorted. “He is.” 

Arthur was going to kill Ariadne.

He finished his drink, and wiped his mouth.

“Look, Arthur, give me one more chance to win you over, alright?”

Arthur looked up at the man, waiting blithely for him to continue, but he was looking at Arthur.

Waiting for an answer, for affirmation. Right. Arthur should just say no, and get out of this ridiculous situation. And then kill Ariadne for being a traitorous friend.

“Yes, fine.” he said instead, surprising himself.

The man smiled at the affirmative, and spread his hands. “Arthur. You’re young, and clearly very beautiful, and right now everyone wants you. Who wouldn’t, when you wear that thousand-dollar suit as if you were doing it a favour.” He punctuated this statement with another wink.

Arthur raised his eyebrows, as if to ask _Is there a point to this?_

The Brit rushed on, looking a little pinker round his cheeks, “But, and perish the thought, one day you might not draw everyone’s eyes to you as soon as you walk into a room. And believe you me, you will never regret it if you come home with me tonight and have a bit of fun while we’re both young-“ Arthur opened his mouth, eyebrow raised, and Eames ploughed on before he could interject, “and in our prime. But if you don’t, I can’t promise you won’t not regret it.”

Arthur looked up at him. “There were four negatives in that sentence.”

The spots of colour on those tanned cheeks grew brighter, and the man looked baffled, running a hand through his blonde hair. “I…look, we invented the language, darling, we can use it however we like, and you’re one to talk about being negative.” He paused, cheeks now fully red. 

Arthur glanced at Ariadne, and noticed with satisfaction that even she was now looking bewildered. 

The Brit shook his head and brushed a hand through his hair again. “Ok, look, Arthur, the ruddy point I’m trying to make is you should let me buy you a drink.”

“Yes, I believe you’ve covered that ground before. we’re leaving.” Arthur stood up and downed the rest of his drink. 

“My delicate Victorian sensibilities are shocked and titillated by your forwardness, Arthur. Your place or mine?”

Arthur ignored him as he checked his phone and started walking towards the door. “Come on, Ariadne.” 

Ariadne shot him a look filled with exasperation, but she picked up her purse and followed him, which made Arthur want to kill her marginally less.

 

As he pulled aside the heavy curtain covering the entryway of the bar, something made Arthur turn around and take one last look at the mystery man who had so approached him with so much confidence. 

The stranger was standing with his hands in his trouser pockets looking after them. He looked…almost confused, his lone figure softly illuminated by the low, golden lamplight.

Arthur swallowed, and looked away before he could be caught staring at those plush lips, the ruggedness of his body, the thickness of his tattooed arms. Ariadne had been right, however much Arthur hated it; the man really was the walking, smirking embodiment of Arthur’s late-night fantasies. During his unrepentantly slutty freshman year of college, when he had slept with a good half of the male student body, Arthur would have fallen straight onto the lap of anyone who looked even remotely like this man. 

But Arthur now was different, and mature, and he had a steady boyfriend who bought him expensive Dior suits and talked about their successful future together like it was a certainty, a done deal.

And so he walked under the thick red curtain and through the door and out into the cold air, handing Ariadne his jacket as she shivered under the light drizzle colouring the world outside a dull, heavy grey.

The next day, late for his first class and rushing across the foggy campus to get there before the professor noticed his absence, Arthur had all but forgotten the handsome British stranger at the bar whom he had unknowingly flustered, and who now stumbled over his own tongue whenever he tried to call anyone else _darling_.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is based on Hannah and Jacob's storyline in Crazy, Stupid, Love., although I'm sorely tempted to also write the part of the story featuring Cobb-as-Cal Weaver i.e. lonely and pathetic after Mal swans off to leave a more fully French life. I don't know if that would be a boring storyline to read, but the idea of Eames making Cobb buy lots of garish clothing and replace all his white sports socks with brightly coloured ones sort of amuses me.
> 
> Also, just to say, Eames in this story is 27, not over 35. Arthur just has a flair for dramatic exaggeration.


	2. socks

Twenty-four hours after Eames ran into the charming, stubborn and frustratingly implacable Arthur, Dom Cobb jumped out of a moving train. To be fair the train was rolling into the station, so it wasn’t the most dramatic of exits, but it still hurt.

Dom jumped out of a moving train because during their dinner at a fancy candlelit restaurant that reminded them both of where they had first met in the South of France, his wife had turned to him and said “I want a divorce.”

Dom had choked and spat out his mouthful of crème brulée back into the dish.

“We used to work and we don’t anymore. We’re stuck in this awful limbo, this farce of a marriage, and you don’t realise it. But it’s okay, my love, because I am going to free us.”

And then, in the awful silence of the night train around them, she had said, “I’ve slept with someone, Dom. Someone at work.”

And he had jumped. 

*

“Pierre-François Giraud.” Dom slurred into his fourth bottle of light beer. “Of all the names, of all the men…”

The tall woman next to him at the bar had shifted further and further away as he slurred into his beer bottle. 

“Hey. Hey.” He waved drunkenly at the barman. “Another, another, uh,…” he peered at his beer bottle, and then his eyes lost focus. “God, that’s probably what my wife says, isn’t it, to fucking Pi…”

“Pierre-François? Probably, if you were always this pathetic around her.” The voice was smooth and low. with an accent. It sounded vaguely irritated.

Dom turned to greet this offensive stranger who obviously knew his wife’s lover, and promptly fell off his barstool. The British man grabbed him by the shoulder before he hit the ground and helped him bodily back up with a grumble.

“Uh, thanks.”

“Yeah, no worries, mate, listen - come and sit with me and have a drink, alright?”

“I’m not…I’m very flattered, but…”

“I’m not trying to chat you up, you mong, just bring your drink and your terrible tie and we’ll have a little talk.”

The man let go of Dom, who wavered dangerously on his own two feet, and went to sit down at a nearby table. He gestured over to Dom and then leaned to murmur into the ear of the beautiful blonde woman who was clearly waiting for him.

He said something that made her giggle and turn almost as red as her low-cut silk dress, and then she sashayed over to the bar, glancing back at him with a wink that looked very much like a promise.

The British man sunk down into one of the chairs and spread his legs, wide. He took a swig from his tumbler as Dom came over uneasily to sit opposite him. 

“What the bloody hell are you drinking.”

Dom lifted up his bottle and squinted at the label. “Cobol.” He said. “It’s good.”

The man closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He looked like he was in pain. “That rat piss will kill you. Go put that beer back on the counter, and apologise to whoever you ordered it from for being such a twat, and get yourself a real drink.”

“And what would you call a real drink?” Dom was vaguely aware he was slurring.

“Macallan on the rocks. Actually, make it two. You’re buying.” He winked. 

*

Dom returned with the two glasses, grumbling about the price. He put a straw into his, which Eames immediately flicked away.

“Hey.”

“Look, you pathetic excuse for a man, I’m really trying to help you here. This is my territory, you see, and you come in every night and fuck up the lovely atmosphere and the twinkly lights with your sad, sad, sob story about Pierre-Francois Girard.”

Dom put on his best angry face. “You know he’s…”

“Fucking your wife, yes, I believe I heard you the first thousand times you shouted it at the barmen.”

Dom wiped a hand over his face. “God, I can’t believe it.”

Eames leaned closer. “You know what your problem is, mate?”

“Dom. Dom Cobb.”

“Right, whatever. Your problem is that you’ve completely lost everything it is that made you exciting and sexy and brilliant to your wife. Look at you.”

Dom looked down at himself in confusion. Comfortable sneakers, white socks, a perfectly serviceable suit. 

“What exactly…”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Dom, to start with white socks are an atrocity to all mankind. Men like me can get away with wearing whatever colours we want, but men like you get only a few chances to show their creative side. And you know what one of those is? A good pair of beautifully made, tenderly stitched, lovingly handled…”

“Are we still talking about socks?”

“Don’t interrupt me again. Now look, Dom, you seem like a very nice man and all, so I’m going to help you out a little, guide your fashion sense. Dressing correctly, it’s a very subtle art.”

Dom squinted at the purple and yellow triangles on the man’s livid green shirt. “Subtle?” 

“Yes, well done, you repeated what I just said back to you. Alright. Once we’ve dealt with this…situation,” he waved a hand around Dom’s general space, “we can move onto other things. Your hair, for one.”

He stood up, Dom still spluttering, and tossed a card onto the table.

“3pm tomorrow at that lovely, shiny shrine to American consumerism on 3rd.”

“You mean the mall?”

But he was gone, and when Dom looked up he saw him escorting the beautiful woman from earlier, draping her jacket over her shoulders and then keeping an arm around the curve of her lovely waist as they left the bar together. She was looking at him like she couldn’t believe her luck.

Dom shook his head, and tried a sip of the now diluted Scotch in his glass. It tasted awful.

*

The next afternoon, hungover and alone in his one bedroom apartment with a lovely view of a major roadway, Dom picked up the business card again as he munched on his Cheerios.  
He turned it over and over in his hand. 

It was bright orange, and said EAMES on it in enormous glittering (literally glittering) silver letters. Then there was a number, in embossed dark green, and no other information.

On the other side was a single winkey face emoji.

Dom put the business card into the pocket of his bathrobe, shaking it so the excess glitter floated gently onto his Ikea fold-up table. He washed up his single bowl, and spoon, and wiped the counter, and then stood for a few minutes playing with the wedding ring around his finger, twisting it around and around. 

Then he grabbed his car keys and went into his bedroom to find a shirt and some clean pants.

*

He found Eames standing on the second floor of the mall in bright pink trousers and a napkin tucked into the neck of his mauve shirt, eating what looked like a hot dog with the confidence of a man who went out into public wearing a belt with patterned ducks on it and knew he still looked pretty good. He was, and he did.

As soon as Eames saw him, he said, conversationally, “Hey, I didn’t get to have a good look at those shoes yesterday. Could I see them now?”

“Uh, what?” 

“Just for a look, you know. Come on, you pillock, give me your shoes.” He grinned, mouth full of ketchup.

Bewildered, Dom took off his shoes one by one and handed them to Eames, who finished his hot dog before taking them by the laces, as if it disgusted him to touch them.

“Okay. Okay. Now socks.”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“What are you gonna do with my socks?!”

“Look, do you want to get over your wife or not?”

“I don’t see what that has to do with…”

“Pierre-François would have given me his socks by now. And then maybe a back massage, with oils. Might be what he’s doing with your wife right about…”

“Don’t. Jesus Christ. Just please don’t…just…here, take them, take them.” 

He peeled his white sport socks off and handed them to Eames, who stood and just looked at them for a minute, Dom’s shoes in his one hand and socks in the other.

“Don’t get ketchup on them, okay, they’re my favourite…”

Eames threw the shoes as far as he could over the glass gate separating them from the lower levels of the mall.

“What the-” 

Eames hurled the socks, his clean washed white sport socks he’d bought in one of those multipacks you get, into the same abyss. They flew in a gentle, soft arc in the perfectly controlled air of the mall and fell, slowly, like drifting lotus flowers, down to the lower level. Dom watched them in despair.

What the fuck, Eames?!”

“Do you want to end up like your multipack socks did, Cobb, alone and boring and tossed away?”

“I don’t know, are you planning to throw me over the fucking glass barrier as well?”

Eames looked nonplussed. “I might, if you carry on the same way as you are. Come on, then, Zegna’s waiting.”

Dom shut his mouth. He was clearly dealing with a madman; he should have twigged when the man had given him his sparkly business card.

“Oh, and another thing,” Eames turned around, suddenly in Dom’s space. He smiled. “Good job on twigging my name, usually people I give that card to think it’s the name of my business, or something ridiculous like that.”

“So what is your business, then?”

“Why, Dom, I’m disappointed. The answer is obvious. I am my business.” Eames tapped his nose in a conspiratory way. “Come on, then, chop chop.” He started walking away, hands slouched in his pockets.

Dom stood for a minute, still mildly enraged about the white sports socks he could see floating idly in the mall fountain, and rushed to follow him, bare feet slapping against the floor.

*

“No, no, no, you are _not_ wearing that. We’re trying to say sexy firefighter here, not mall cop.”

“I am neither of those things.”

“Yes, Dom, but which do you think the ladies would prefer you to resemble, hmm?”

“Ok, fine, but I’m not wearing that orange shirt.”

“Oh, no, the shirt’s for me. Did you really think you’d be able to pull that off?” 

Dom threw aside the changing room curtain in his boxers, and glared. “Hey. I could pull off orange.”

Eames smiled beatifically. “Ah, good, because I’ve got some lovely trousers here and they’re…”

Dom pulled the curtain shut again with enough force to rip off the corner ring.

*

Dom stepped out of the changing room wearing a dark blue shirt and striped trousers.

“I look like my wife’s father.” 

“Your wife’s father has better taste than you.”

“He’s a 76-year old professor.” 

“Alright, alright. Look, Nathan here thinks you look amazing. Isn’t that right, Nathan?” Eames purred.

The tall, slim and pretty shop assistant, Nathan apparently, gave Dom a long, bored once-over and then simpered, mostly in Eames’ direction. “You look great.” 

“Come on then, do a twirl for us.” 

Dom tried not to roll his eyes, but shuffled awkwardly in place.

“Your arse looks great in those.” 

Nathan leaned over and murmured into Eames’ ear something clearly involving trousers and a great ass.

Eames made a mock-outraged face and wrapped his arm around Nathan’s waist. He bent over to murmur something in his ear.

Dom rolled his eyes. “Look Nathan, you seem great and all, but I feel I should let you know he’s already gotten the numbers of three girls and a guy today and we’ve been in this mall for an hour and a half.”

Eames pulled a hand over his face. “Nathan just complimented you, Dom. He said to me, and I quote, in those trousers he’s hot enough for a threesome. And then, let’s recap what happened. You opened your mouth,  and now he hates you.”

Dom’s cheeks had turned a bright pink. “Look, I’m sorry…I’m, uh…”

Eames rolled his eyes. “Straight as a three-inch ruler, yes, dear, so you’ve said, neither of us are actually trying to seduce you, so will you shut up and try on that maroon shirt with the little carrots on it?”

Dom pulled the curtain across in relief.

From the other side he heard Nathan’s voice, low and simpering, “I don’t know about what he said, but I doubt any of the others you talked to today have two roommates who are both also _really_ into British guys, and happen to be free tonight.” 

Dom hit his head against the wall. “Really?” 

Eames tutted. Dom could practically see the easy grin on his face, the look he was giving Nathan that every one of his previous four conquests today had already melted under. “Come on, Dom, don’t be a prude. You tried on that kilt yet?” 

*

Eames smiled at him from where he had been sucking loudly on the straw of his venti caramel dream frappucino. He looked from Dom’s face to his now-shoe-clad feet, and back up.

“Hey, I’m proud of you, Dom-boy.”

Dom’s feet hurt from the fancy leather brogues they were stuffed in, and his eyes hurt from the bright green socks he caught a glimpse of every time he looked down. 

“Why, because I bought an entire new wardrobe at your insistence?”

Eames removed his mouth from the straw and looked pensive. “Yes.” he said after a moment, and then paused to enthusiastically hoover up more ice coffee, “but more than that, you’re not wearing your ring. That’s good, that is. First step to moving on, and all.”

“My…” Dom looked down at his left hand. His bare left hand. 

He dropped all the bags in his hand, feeling sick, knowing with certainty that he had felt something was wrong on his fucking…

*

Eames found him a few minutes later back in the changing room of the designer store, rifling through the piles of bright clothing with the desperation of a drowning man. 

He stood, watching him, and for once said nothing.

Dom reached the bottom of the pile and saw it; the glinting gold of the ring, sitting innocently on the grey, stained floor. He picked it up and sat down slowly, clumsily, and breathed, with his head against the mirror, eyes closed, hands folded together. He sighed, and wiped at his itchy eyes. Piles of bright clothing lay strewn about him, some of it on top of him, like a shelter.

Eames, strangely quiet, finally leaned down. “Dom? You okay there?”

Dom looked up at Eames. He looked relieved. “Yeah, sorry, I just…I don’t know. It’s like I…forgot which way was up, for a moment. I’ve been shopping too long.” He smiled guilelessly, all blue eyes and blonde hair, and took the hand Eames gave him to help him up, and stood, brushing his clothes off. The ring was back on his hand, secure. He kept his hands in his pocket as he exited the store, feeling the weight of it against his fingers.

“You know you’re going to have to take that off when we start teaching you how to pick up women.” 

“I know, just…not now, okay?”

“I know.” He slung an arm over Dom’s shoulder. “You pathetic lovesick git.”

“Look, I bought socks, what more do you want from me?”

“You’re right.” Eames took him by the shoulders, and looked at him. “You’re ready for phase two.”

“Phase two?” 

“10 o’clock Friday night, don’t be pathetically early, wear your new threads.” Eames winked and started strolling away. Then he turned back, and said, with his bright and seductive confidence, “We’ll make a heartbreaker out of you yet!” 

*

Dom turned up on Friday night in his new haircut and new clothes. They weren’t exactly comfortable, but he had to admit they made him look like a successful entrepreneur rather than a lonely wifeless man whose main diet consisted of cereal and ready meals. He found Eames in his usual ridiculous getup, looking very handsome and already eyeing up the rest of the bar.

“My, my, who’s this? Dom, I have to say, you look like a new man.”

"I feel like I'm sweating through my suit, and everyone can smell it."

"And there's the charmer I know."

Eames flagged down the barman.

“Two neat whiskeys, please.”

Dom groaned. “Please stop ordering whisky for me and then making me pay for it. I hate whisky.”

“Dom, I want you to remember who you were before you met your wife. The crazy, wild women you met, the dates you went on, all the wild times before you chained yourself up.”

Dom swallowed. “I, uh…I’ve only ever been with Mal. I asked her out on a date as a dare at this weird bar in the city my freshman year of college. It was shaped like a giant spinning top, all chrome, and she sat at the other end of the bar and she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen, by far. Everyone was staring. And then my friend dared me to ask her if she wanted a drink. And five minutes later, when I was buying her the drink, the barman took one look at my ID and kicked me out of the bar. And I thought I’d never see her again, but then she turned up the next day after my first class, the professor’s daughter.” He chuckled at the story, staring at the shiny gold bartop, remembering how he and Mal used to tell everyone about how they met, that they were known throughout college as the couple who would spend the rest of their lives together.

Eames had finished his whiskey and was looking bored and confused. “That’s a touching story, and also, might I remark, a very _long_ story, but I’m not sure I grasped your meaning- do you honestly mean for me to believe you’ve only ever slept with one woman?”

Dom frowned. “Eames, you don’t understand. I felt like I’d already seen her in my dreams a thousand times, when we first met. I’ve never even thought about anyone else the way I did about her. And I was a nobody back then, I was a mess.”

Eames was holding a hand to his forehead, covering his eyes as if in distress. “The situation is worse than I feared. One woman? Christ, Dom. Look, this wife of yours, whatever her name was,”

“Mallorie.”

“Ok, yes, whatever. Look, Dom," his voice softened at the sad, pinched look on Dom's face, "look, she might have been the love of your life, but that was an old and boring life, and now I’m your knight in shining armour come to spirit you away to a new life, yeah? A life full of irresponsible sex, and a woman on each arm, and no need to bother with remembering the names of any of them.” He grinned. 

“Sounds great.” Dom said weakly, trying really very hard to muster up enthusiasm.

Eames rolled his eyes. “Just drink your sodding whiskey, and let’s go.”

Dom took a gulp of his whisky, tried to fight back the tears in his eyes from the awful taste, and got off the bench. He wondered what Mal was doing, if she was enjoying being in France, if she was with Pierre-Francois. He hadn’t tried to call her, yet, hadn’t asked her father where she was when he came to pick up and drop off the kids. But now his phone felt heavy in his pocket from the missed calls she had left, the voicemails he hadn’t listened to. It had been days since she called. He wondered if she was thinking about him, at all, or if she had already moved on to a new life, somewhere exciting and free from responsibility. 

He put his wedding ring in his trouser pocket and picked up his terrible whisky.

*

“Hello there.”

The redhead looked up from where she had been leaning against a sofa chatting with her friends, and her eyes immediately widened when she saw Eames. Dom had never thought before meeting Eames that women openly telegraphed their interest in anyone, but he now realised he had been very, very wrong. Especially when the woman’s eyes then slid to him, and they narrowed again, as if to say _Oh, that’s a shame, I hoped his friends might also be attractive._

She turned away from Dom as if hoping to forget he existed, and smiled at Eames, showing pretty white teeth. “Hi there. Where are you from?”

“Me? Oh, you don’t want to hear about me, I’m very boring, love.” He winked, and Dom nearly rolled his eyes at her giggle, the flush on her cheeks. 

“My friend, on the other hand…” He pushed Dom forward, who stood and held his melting (disgusting) glass of whisky in his hands and struggled to find anything to say.

“Hi.” He tried.

“Hello.” Now she wasn’t even smiling. 

The silence stretched on.

Eames coughed. “Well, this looks like it’s going swimmingly, so I’ll fetch us all a few drinks, alright? You look far too lovely tonight to be buying your own drinks, after all.” The woman’s smile and blush returned as if on cue, and she said in a very different voice, “Cranberry vodka, please.”

“Perfect. See you in a few.” He disappeared, leaving the two of them alone.

“So, uh, what are your names?”

“Huh? Oh, I’m Cobb, and that’s Eames over there, buying us the…” he squinted at Eames’ lazy figure leaning against the bar, a very familiar looking wallet held in his hand. “What…” Dom checked his pockets. His wallet was missing. “I’m going to fucking kill you…” he muttered.

“What did you say?” The woman was now putting on a smile that wasn’t fooling anyone in its sincerity. She looked mildly alarmed.

“Uh, nothing, nothing. You know, it’s a funny story why we’re here tonight. My wife just left me, and…”

By the time Eames returned, Dom was telling the story of how he and Mal had finally learned how to housetrain Jacob and Philippa. “…and that’s when we started calling him Pointman, because they both saw him as some kind of hero, but anyway he refused to help clear the mess in the bathroom and bedroom and kitchen so he definitely wasn’t a hero in my books.” He laughed to the resonating silence of the woman, and her two horrified-looking friends.

Eames hurriedly pressed the woman's drink into her hand and said, “Dom, noone thinks it’s interesting when you blather on about your children, okay? Christ."

He turned to the women and put on his apologetic grin. "If you two lovely ladies like, I can give you these whiskeys to apologise for my friend’s complete lack of social skill. You look like the kind of discerning ladies who would appreciate a good single malt.” Almost in unison the women smiled, and took their drinks. “You can sit with us if you like. Our friend’s coming back, but there’s space on the couch.” One of them said. She was blonde, and wearing an emerald necklace that lay against her white tube top in a way that made it very hard for the eyes not to wander to her cleavage. She saw him looking, and glared at him.

Dom shrank back. Women were scary.

*

The ‘friend’ of the three women Eames befriended (ha) turned out to be a tall, slim, dark haired man in a suit. He looked bored, and arrogant. Eames took one look at him and immediately seemed to forget there was anyone else in the room. Dom half-listened to their conversation, learning that the man’s name was Tobias and he was an investment banker (“You don’t look old enough to be making that much money, love.” Eames had purred, and the man had blushed immediately, looking dazzled by the attention). 

Within five minutes Eames had charmed him into sitting practically in Eames’ lap. 

At the ten minute mark (Dom was checking) Eames downed the third whisky he had bought using Dom’s credit card, said “It’s been a lovely night, folks, but I believe me and Toby here must be leaving,” and sauntered out with his hand resting blatantly on Tobias’ ass, leaving Dom gaping at the table with the women who were now blatantly ignoring him. 

Ten minutes later, when the three beautiful and bored women left him, Dom discovered his wallet had been returned to him when he patted his pockets, and felt a brief and absurd rush of relief. He was about to stand up to leave, thinking of the episodes of _Dream Interiors_ he had recorded on the small and terrible television in his small and terrible apartment, when he saw a woman coming towards him.

And not just any woman. This one looked at him like she had come into the bar just to find him, her eyes warm and sparkling. She had a smile playing around her full red lips. She swung her hips in her black dress and gold heels as if to say _I wore this so you could think about me taking it off for you._

As she approached him, Dom put a smile on his face that he hoped didn’t make him look like an idiot.

For the first time all night, all week, he thought _I can do this,_ and managed to put his wife out of his head. 

And then the beautiful woman with the red lips and sway to her every movement reached out her elegant hand and held out a leather binder holding what was, unmistakeably, a bill.

Dom’s smile faltered as he took it, and felt like an idiot as he watched her sashay away through the bar.

He felt like a bigger idiot when he looked at the bill. 

_*_

The next night when he came in, Eames wiped his mouth with his napkin and dropped it on the empty plates in front of him, clapped him on the back as if they were old friends, and apologised immediately for the night before. Dom felt almost inclined to forgive him.

Then they spent the next five nights ‘talking to women’, which is to say that Eames did most of the talking, and Dom sat around and ate glacé cherries with his small toothpick. 

Two of those five nights, Eames got distracted halfway through a conversation by some tall, dark and pale man who had wandered into the bar, and left Dom with the poor, disappointed women. This then reduced them to discuss brands of cereal or the merits of different television shows until she inevitably got bored and left.

The other nights, almost like clockwork, Eames would check his watch, grin at the woman (with all his crooked teeth on display), squeeze the hand he had on her thigh and say in a low, intimate murmur, “Come home with me.” 

They always did. 

By the sixth night Dom was getting sick of watching Eames leave with another wide-eyed, delighted beauty, and told Eames as much, as soon as he came into the bar. He felt ridiculous, and hot, under his tight shirt collar. He was sure he was sweating. He was sick of the smoky atmosphere, the low gold accents, the jazz. He wanted to forget, and all he was doing was dreaming about Mal every night in this bar, watching him from across the bartop while everyone else’s eyes were trained on her. Watching him as he searched, and searched, for the wedding ring that he couldn’t find in the dream, until he woke up in a sweat and took it off the bedside table and shoved it back on his finger and slept like a baby.

He was wearing it tonight. “You haven’t taught me anything, Eames. I still have no idea how to pick up women. All I have is a credit card statement a mile long and too many fancy suits.” 

Eames swallowed the last bite of his burger and licked his lips, chasing ketchup. His napkin was tucked into his shirt as if he was a small child.

“What do I do every time I chat someone up, Dom?

“I don’t know, you call them pet names and use some stupid British terminology so they ask where you’re from.”

Eames removed the napkin from around his neck, and straightened out his collar. His top buttons were undone. “Mm-hmm. And?”

“And you compliment them, and wink at them like you’re in the 50’s.”

“Very good, Cobb.” Eames leaned back in his barstool, picking his teeth idly with a toothpick. “Anything else?”

Dom thought hard. “You always buy them a drink, and you ask them their entire life story, and then you show them that ridiculous orange sparkly business card you have and make up a story…”

“In fact I have several business cards, to suit any occasion.” Eames grins. 

“Exactly, so you pretend that you also trained as a vet, or were in the army, or went to Oxford, and then they latch onto you like a clam because they think you have so much in common and you ask them to go home with you.” He paused, and added, in case Eames thought he hadn't noticed, "And they fall for it every time, of course."

Eames' smile was a mile wide. He flagged down the barman, and ordered two pints of lager, and put ten dollars on the counter. 

He gave one pint to Dom, and with the other he knocked their glasses together, so the foam spilled over.

“Congratulations Dom, you’re a real boy now. Learned all the tricks of the trade.” He looked almost proud.

Dom drank. The lager was good, and strong, and much better than the beer he had drunk when he first arrived at the bar, as if washed up at some foreign shore. It made him remember those days, and feel confident now, in his new suit and leather shoes. 

He put the pint glass back on the gold bartop. It seemed to smile up at him. "Okay. I think I can do this." He slipped his wedding ring off his finger and into his pocket, and patted it once. He barely felt the weight of it in his pocket.

Eames put an arm around his shoulder. “Come on, you nutter. Let’s go find you someone who’ll actually want to shag you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No Arthur in this chapter but I promise he will appear in the next chapter, or the one after (sorry). There will be a bit more of Dom's saga in the next chapter but the focus of it will be Arthur and Eames.  
> Please let me know what you think as I've never tried to write Dom before and I know he might be a bit all over the place (also a bit like Gollum because of how obsessed he is with his wedding ring) and also tell me if you see any glaring spelling/grammar errors because I'm bad at spotting those.


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